New Video Short Explains Electoral College Process

Washington, DC…The National Archives’ Office of the Federal Register has launched new interactive Electoral College maps on its official Electoral College website. The public can actively participate in the electoral process by predicting electoral votes for the upcoming Presidential election and sharing their prediction results through social media. The new maps are online [www.archives.gov/federal-register/electoral-college/map/predict.html].

In addition, the Federal Register has posted a new video on how the Electoral College works [www.archives.gov/federal-register/electoral-college/about.html].

With the new interactive maps, users can predict which candidate will win which states, and the Electoral College website will keep a running tally. The user can then tweet or email predictions or create posts on Facebook to share. The site is simple to navigate, and the user can create a personalized map from a template. Results can also be loaded from the previous two elections.

After the election, the user can view the actual Certificates of Ascertainment and Vote from each state once the Federal Register has received and uploaded them to the website.

The new site allows users access to election information from previous Presidential elections. The Federal Register has data as far back as the 1964 election uploaded to the site and will gradually add data from the 1960 election and earlier. Users can see who the candidates were and who won each state and pull up information about the popular vote totals. For example, did you know that a third-party candidate received one electoral vote in 1972? [www.archives.gov/federal-register/electoral-college/historical.html].

The Office of the Federal Register has administered the Electoral College since the 1950s. It launched its first website in 1996 and started posting the Certificates of Ascertainment and Vote in 2000. This election year’s Certificates will be posted online once the states send them to the Federal Register.

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For press information about the Electoral College process, contact the Legal Affairs and Policy Division at the Office of the Federal Register at electoral.college@nara.gov or 202-741-6030.